Twitter: the Latest Addictive Social Media Tool

What do you get when you mix IM, blogging, flash, addictive behavior, RSS and fun? Twitter. Everyone who uses it answers one question: "What are you doing?"

Using Twitter is as simple as sending an IM. You can use Twitter from your computer, mobile or IM. Your updates are published online and in an RSS feed too.You can add your Twitter posts to any web page, including My Space, blogs, wikis. And you can build a flash page, like this. You can choose to make your updates part of the public conversation, or only make them available only to your friends. My Twitter page is here

Frankly, I don't give out my cell phone number to anyone but my closest friends and family. So I'm not adding Twitter to my cell any time soon, even though I pay only $5 a month for unlimited texting.

Travel PR Blog calls it "the bastard love child or IM and blogging."

Many of the digerati already are there, including:

Robert Scoble
Bobbie Johnson of The Guardian
Sam Sethi formerly of techcrunch,
Anil Dash of Six Apart

I see plenty of business applications, and have already set up an account for Wife in the Fast Lane. You can find a link there for a sneak peak to the contest that launches Wednesday morning. Shhh!

You can get comments about Steve Jobs' CES keynote address via twitter, courtesy of Macworld's Twitter page. And you can BBC News updates

Ok marketers: Twitter on.

hat tip to Drew Benvie

I'll have to give it a Twitter - er, try!